Anti Racist Network {ARN}

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Saturday November 29, 2003 11:34 by Davy Carlin - W/Belfast SWP carlindavid at hotmail dot com

Below is a summury of the minutes of the last ARN meeting

The ARN are to organise a number of visual events in the coming time while also working various other strategies to rise the issue of racism and racist attacks.

Apologies

Valery , Padraigin,Marie,Nathalie,Edwin, Graham and Alisa.

The meeting began with a discussion of questions which were compiled by members
of the ARN and are to be sent to all the political parties.

Barbara stated that she would ring around the various political parties to
establish their spokesperson on equality issues and to get fax numbers.
Leish and Davy will ensure that the questions are faxed/e-mailed to the various
political parties on Thursday.

It was agreed that we would give the parties until the weekend to respond and if
necessary we would telephone the parties asking for their response. {Sara}

It was then suggested that we would go to the media on Monday with the responses
that the parties made.

Barbara agreed that she would collate the responses received by the various
parties and send them to the various media outlets for publication.

Dan stated that he would ensure that an e-mail address would be set up for the
ARN, and would read as follows, belfastarn@yahoo.co.uk.

December 10th International Human Rights Day

It was agreed that the ARN would organize a symbolic event against racism on the
10th of December.

The event would consist of a candle lit vigil outside the city hall
Time 5pm

Publicity
Barbara agreed to compile a poster advertising the vigil,
Helen agreed to ring various radio stations,
Sara agreed to ring Cool FM
Ann agreed that she would be available to distribute posters.
It was agreed that persons could pick up posters at the MCRC

A question raised by Joe as to who is to deal with the media, It was agreed
Valerie, Davy, Stephen, Barbara and Nathalie who had to date been dealing with
this.

It was also agreed that members of the ARN would distribute the posters amongst
their own network groups.

Helen also agreed that she would notify the PSNI & the City Hall about the
event.


Love music hate racism (anti-racist gigs.)

Dan provided members with an update of his meetings with various artists with
regards to running an anti-racist gig.

He stated that there was a lot of enthusiasm from artists about participating in
anti-racist gigs. Dan suggested that we need to go back to the artists to find
out the earliest time that they could get a gig up and going and to discuss
venues.

Tim stated that there were artists who had already organized concerts, which
could be used to promote anti-racism.
Dan agreed to speak to Nathalie and Valerie, who had the list of the various
promoters that they had previously spoken to, he will establish whether it is
possible to organize an anti-racist gig before Christmas. Dan stated the
possiblity of getting bands such as ASH and Thrills etc for a March gig looked
promising with ongoing talks with promoters and others.


Response to ‘new’ legislation on Racism

Barbara asked for the ARN to endorse a response to this legislation. She stated
that the legislation did not go far enough. It had increased the penalties from
five to seven years, but the legislation fell short in that the onus still
remained with the victim to prove that a racial attack had occurred.

Lekan asked for feedback on the Racial Incident Monitoring, which will be
provided at the next meeting, and lekan, Barbara and Padraigin to work on such
matters.

Zak produced a logo for the ARN but will decide what logo is to represent the
ARN after we have looked at a selection.

Date of next meeting

Thursday 4th December
Venue Multi Cultural Resource Centre

Additional to date, have had responses from the Alliance Party, SDLP, SEA, Sinn Fein and Women's coalition,

Additional organisations and individuals who attended Wed nights meeting included

The N.Ireland equality Commission
Amnesty International
Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign